Monday, July 21, 2008

We Did It!

We're finally homeowners! I was beginning to lose hope. I was in DC all week. Every time Randy called me it was a different issue.

It started w/ a voice mail from the insurance agent saying that our policy was denied because of the age of our hot water heater. We got that all fixed and ended up w/ a better policy for less money. Hurdle one cleared!

Friday, our realtor calls Randy and explains that we're missing the HUD-1 closing statement. She emails me an addendum w/ a closing date extension "just in case". Phone calls back and forth, the statement was coming from Miami, not here in Tampa and supposedly their system had gone down around 3pm. We did finally get our closing statement mid Saturday afternoon.

Sunday evening, we have our final walk through. OMG! HELL! Randy was checking the back yard while Ant and I went w/ our realtor inside. Our first though was that it was awfully cool and something sounded as though it were running when our electricity should haved been shut off the last day of June! Ant takes one step in the hall and we found a 1/4" of water all througout the hall and in the bedrooms, the bathroom was even worse! The hot water heater busted! Since it's on well water and the electric was on, the water kept pumping! We were aghast! We didn't even have 24hrs to close and here we are w/ a flood!

Many, many phone calls today. We were supposed to close at 11:30 am. That was NOT going to happen. The seller (Countrywide bank) came back w/ an offer~ replace the hot water tank, have everything cleaned and dried up, pull up all the floors, and throw in a home warranty covering all appliances/pipes/ac. Our agent explained that they really wanted to close today so we tried to push our luck. We retorted by asking that they also add the $2k that they overestimated for closing costs so that we could replace the floors. Got a call a few hours later and they agreed.

Oh, but that was not the end of course... We then get a phone call saying the lender is not going to approve of us getting not only our $2k deposit, but an additional $2k for the floors. Option #2, lower the cost of the house by that amount. Okay, fine. Minutes later, another phone call. Nope that's not going to work. Since it's an FHA loan, all the paper work would have to be redone and ran through FHA. That would take at least a week. Option #3~ be given a credit for said amount to use through a contractor to replace floors. FINE, ets just get this done!

We get to closing and had to wait for all the extra addendums and a new closing statement. We were surprised to see that our realtor and the title co. rep were the only other people there. The seller's agent was not there, nor was our lending agent. Then we run into another problem. They overestimated the damage of the floors, they'll only reimburse us $885. Sheesh. One thing after another.

We get everything signed, leave, end up at the house which is a good 3o min from the title company, to check up on the cleaning/water heater process, and then the phone rings again!! We had to turn around and go back, they had just gotten the updated HUD statement and had to sign all the new ones. Grrrrr....

But, it's over. We're all signed. The flooded mess is being taken care of and we're moving on! We're happy that they're replacing the water heater and giving us money for the floor, even if it's not the amount we'd asked for. We were already going to replace both of these things immediately anyway, now we don't have to spend the money on it. Always a good thing!!

Tomorrow And and I will go measure and start primering the rooms that weren't affected by the flooding. We went to Home Depot (where are floor credit is) and looked at carpet for two of the rooms. I found an eco-friendly yarn that wasn't overpriced and I think we'll go with that~ GO GREEN! Our room and the living/dining area will be wood laminate. We brought home bamboo samples only to find that the ones we liked and could afford were too easily scratched. Also, it needed the glue which in and of itself is quite $$$. The wood laminate just seems more realistic, even though it's not as eco friendly. I tried.

There will be before and after shots at some point, so keep your eyes out.